Dade Activist Helping Mold Tougher Now

July 15, 1991|By LIZ DOUP, Staff Writer

One evening early this month, Miami lawyer Patricia Ireland stood before a NOW convention in New York City and said two little words -- two words that took the feminist organization off the political back burner and put it right in the fire.

In her speech, Ireland said that for the first time in the group`s 25-year history, the National Organization for Women was issuing a call for civil disobedience. And the next thing she knew, she was in The New York Times and on national TV, getting a fresh infusion of publicity for NOW.

``It`s a way to dramatize things,`` she said during a phone interview following the convention. ``It`s a way to stir up people.``

And more important, she says, it`s necessary.

NOW`s agenda includes a fight to defeat the nomination of Clarence Thomas to the U.S. Supreme Court. In addition, protecting access to abortion is still a high priority.

``Trust me, the first 15 years of NOW were the best,`` Ireland says. ``We got the equal credit act and Roe vs. Wade (legalizing abortion) and finally women were admitted into the military academies. But the `80s have not been a fun decade. More and more, we`re seeing attempts to assert control over women`s lives.``

And so the message from NOW, via Ireland: ``I want people to know how much women are being pushed back. And our response is, `We won`t go back. We will fight back.```

That`s where civil disobedience factors in, although Ireland says it`s in the talking stage, not the doing stage.

``I can`t say right now, `Here`s what we`ll do,``` she says. Participants need to be trained and strategies mapped. But one thing is certain: Violence isn`t part of the package.

For the record, Ireland has engaged in civil disobedience. In 1987, she and a few other NOW members went to the Vatican Embassy in Washington, D.C., and found they weren`t welcome.

Although the law is off the books now, at that time, a D.C. ordinance prohibited demonstrating within 500 feet of an embassy.

``We went up to the pope`s door with the `Last Lunch` -- bread and wine -- and we were arrested,`` she says.

NOW, Ireland adds, was protesting the Catholic church`s interference in American public policy -- on matters such as abortion.

Ultimately, the charges were dropped, but the point had been made and publicity had been garnered. Mission accomplished.

These days, Ireland spends most of her time on the road. She maintains a home near NOW headquarters in Washington and a home in South Dade. ``And I have every intention of coming back to my Florida home,`` she says.

It won`t be for a while, however, because Ireland is designated to become NOW`s president in December. In the meantime, presidential duties have fallen her way because President Molly Yard is recovering from a recent stroke.

As a spokeswoman for NOW, Ireland doesn`t need to read from a prepared script; she knows the story from her own experience.

Now 45, she grew up at a time when most women thought they had three career choices: nurse, teacher or airline stewardess. She did two of the three -- first teaching, then working as a flight attendant.

Her foray into feminism came about through her spouse. When he needed dental work, Ireland learned that Pan American, her employer, included only female spouses in its insurance policies, not male spouses.

Ireland promptly became involved in the burgeoning women`s movement. In addition, she earned a law degree in 1975 and worked as a corporate lawyer in Miami before volunteering to do legal work for NOW.

In 1978, Ireland moved from NOW member to NOW leader when she was elected president of Dade`s chapter. In 1981, she became a member of the national board.

Among Ireland`s most public acts was her recounting of her own abortion in the `60s, done by an alcoholic, unlicensed foreign doctor.

``Women my age remember what it was like when women were dying and getting maimed,`` she says. ``The whole irony is that abortion is such a private issue the government should have nothing to say about it.``

She also worked as campaign manager in the mid-`80s for Eleanor Smeal, one- time NOW president, during a divisive period when NOW was struggling with what direction to take.

Ireland, true to form, wanted to re-radicalize the organization and was promoting the fiery Smeal to reclaim the post she once held. They won.

``Quiet lobbying doesn`t work for us,`` she told a reporter during the Smeal campaign. ``It might work for the oil companies and big businesses. But not for civil rights.``

Six years later, she remains faithful to that theme. Though letter-writing and lobbying play a part in getting legislators` attention, Ireland says that isn`t enough.